When my little brother was about the age of two, he used to take a nap once every afternoon. When it was time for his nap, my mother would play Pachelbel’s Canon on our CD player, a daily cue which told everyone at home what was about to happen next.
Both my brother and I hated this time for different reasons. My brother didn’t like the idea of having to sleep when everybody else was awake and having fun, and I dreaded the prospect of the next one hour sitting at the table with my mother working on my daily study task.
Every day, as soon as the first note of Pachelbel’s Canon was heard from the speaker, my brother would become rebellious.
“I’m not sleeping!” He would say. “I’m not sleeping!”
And he would go to play with his toy buses to show us that he wasn’t sleepy. But my mother had a plan for this scenario.
“Okay, then, your sister and I are going to sleep now. Let’s go!”
She motioned me to go to the next room with her where she had prepared a bedding for my brother’s nap. We then both lay down there for a few minutes before my brother started feeling lonely in the main room and came to join us. But he still kept his rebellious attitude. He wouldn’t just lie down next to us.
“I’m sleeping on Mommy’s lap.”
He climbed onto my mother’s lap and closed his eyes there. But since it wasn’t a very comfortable position, he didn’t fall asleep right away. He spent quite a while tossing and turning before finally giving up the position and settling on the bedding instead.
Several minutes later, when my brother was finally asleep, my mother would wake me up for my study session. By that time, I was fast asleep next to my brother. As I got out of my blanket, I always felt jealous of my brother’s nap privilege and wondered why he had to rebel against it so much.